Talk:Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä

Meaning of name

What does the name translate to? I assume it means something in Sami? (Found via a comment on an article about the Top 5 longest place-names in the world.) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 10:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess you have to ask it directly from some Lappish user. I don't think it's Sami language. What I can recognise, puoli = half, lauta = board; timber (no idea what does -tsi mean at the end), jänkä = bog.

I have heard as a common explanation for funny and dirty place names that many of them were made up when Sweden had a mapping project in Finland back in the 18th century (Finland was a part of Sweden then). The Swedish cartographers, often with poor Finnish language skills, walked around in Finland asking names of places from the local inhabitants. In many cases the Finns told some insane or dirty names and they were writted down on the official maps. Later, when Finland became independent, some names were changed; at least most dirty genital names were wiped off from the maps. I don't know if this is the case with Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä, but it is possible. --Gwafton (talk) 16:45, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I speak Finnish natively and cannot make any more sense of the name than Gwafton above. I guess the "äteritsiputeritsi" part is just pure nonsense. The rest means, roughly "half-board bog", what ever sense that's supposed to make. JIP | Talk 14:57, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

In the current version of the article in Finnish language Wikipedia a scientific explanation has been given to the etymology of the name. Although there have been guesses that the name would be nonsense this seems not to the plausible explanation. Instead, as it has been guessed also previously, the origin of the name seems to come fron the Kemi Sámi language that was spoken in the area. The scientific article is in Finnish but as a non linguist I will not try to translate it but maybe someone else could try. --Urjanhai (talk) 16:32, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

But no need to try: in English language Wikitionary this has been explained in English using the same source. The translation is: "The bog on which the storage hut standing on a single pillar and belonging to 'Paul', the son of 'Peter', the son of 'Andrew', stands/stood on". In en-Wikipedia a shorter expression in English for "the storage hut standing on a single pillar" is given: bear cache that translates to se:Njalla or fi:Niliaitta. --Urjanhai (talk) 16:55, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Error in cited source

A cited source states:

8. Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä - this place in Finnish Lapland has the distinction of being the longest place name in Finland. It was also home to a pub which boasted the longest commercial name for a business in Finland. But it closed down, presumably because no-one was able to ask for directions to find it.

This is wrong, as the pub was not actually located in Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä, but in a different municipality altogether. JIP | Talk 18:50, 7 August 2011 (UTC)